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Saturday, December 10, 2011

Eggnog

If you see a fat man who's jolly and cute
Wearing a beard and a red flannel suit
And if he is chuckling and laughing away
While flying around in a miniature sleigh
With eight tiny reindeer to pull him along
Then - let's face it ... Your eggnog's just too strong!!

LOL! That was wrote by an anonymous author, but isn't it true? Nothing says holiday's more than a good creamy, delicious, and STRONG eggnog. For our family, eggnog is broken out when it is tree decorating time. I mean Mr. B and I def. need it with all those tangled up lights, ornament hooks which are hooked to anything and everything.. even me by the end of it! After all eggnog has that same rule as labor day.... nothing white after.... well you get my point.

We skipped that whole eggnog thing with the tree this year. After all we did just move and bought new decorations so we shouldn't need it right? Wrong. I still crave some good ole eggnog...so off to the liquor store I go after work. Yup great thing to think of while working, when can I get off and get to the ABC store!

Well my plan was to go in and grab a bottle of whiskey or bourbon. Mr. B prefers the company of Mr. Jack Daniels in his libations, but wait there stands Mr. Evan Williams right inside the door looking so festive in his holiday green. There sat a bottle of Even Williams pre-made eggnog. I thought what the heck its only 8 bucks might as well. But here I am at home now, with my new bottle of "traditional" eggnog; however, not so traditional if it's made in a factory somewhere right?

Then I got to thinking, where did the name eggnog come from anyway? The egg part is obvious but what about the nog? So I did a little research in order to prepare a tiny history lesson ( why didn't they teach us this in school)?

There are two stories floating around where the word "nog" originated. The first one suggests that "nog" was derived from the word "noggin". So obviously someone had to much eggnog, fell and bumped their noggin! Well at least that is what I thought. It turns out a noggin is a type of mug used back in the old english days that drinks were served out of. Darn.. I liked my version better.

The 2nd explanation I found suggests nog came from the word "grog", which again was used in the old english days and meant rum. So perhaps an old drunk Englishman couldn't say Egg-Grog, so he instead said Eggnog.. and there you have it... centuries later a holiday drink enjoyed by families around the world but only 1 month out of the year!

Anyway, back to my original point of this post today. Eggnog in a bottle isn't traditional, at least not for me! I haven't created my own eggnog recipe as of yet.. I will probably work on it sometime this week and update this post.